Thursday, November 5, 2015

What's Left After Lethbridge: Skate Canada 2015 in Review (Men/Dance)

NOTEWORTHY DANCE (from Skate Canada):

+Truth is, I don’t have a whole lot to say about
the dance event aside from props in general to the top three. Russia's Bobrova/Soloviev
came back from some 20 months away from competition and, aside from some
(occasionally significant) speed issues, they had the “like they never left”
sort of comeback they had to be hoping for. Scores were very compatible with
their most recent GP appearances; third place suited them well here. (And the Anna Karenina FD is lovely.)

+And I knew I would be very fond of The
Shibutanis’ “Fix You” FD (which now has an instrumental passage from another
great Coldplay song, “The Scientist”) from the moment I heard that’s what
they’d chosen this season. Particularly for them—a brother/sister team that has
built-in challenges avoiding overtly romantic themes—this contemporary song of
healing and hope is ambiguous enough to work beautifully for siblings. (Not to
mention a build and climax that work beautifully for ice dancing.)

+Still, I was kind of surprised to see their
scores a little closer to Weaver/Poje than they were at Worlds—where they
finished 5th to Wea/Po’s 3rd. Perhaps they are already
getting judicial recognition for the “Fix”--? As for Wea/Po, they’re looking as
solid and charismatic as ever, and they won SkCAN by over 5 points. But everyone
knows they are displeased, to say the least, with the World Bronze Medal
(especially considering how they’d won everything in their path last season up
to then), and will be satisfied with nothing less than World/Olympic gold. I
wish them well—the narrowing-of-the-gap here has more to do with the Shibs’
progress than any regression on Wea/Po’s part—but dang, it is crowded at the
top.

NOTE ABOUT THE NOTEWORTHY MEN: Unofficially, I was thinking
around the time of making my predictions that NONE of the men that eventually
ended up on the podium would skate a clean FS. Wrong!! Two of the three
did(!!)... it was the SP that got mucked up by many. Like...

+Yuzuru Hanyu, whose artistry could not help him
any higher than 6th when clean jumps eluded him. Didn’t help that
Patrick Chan was back in the house... though his SP was most definitely what he
wanted, either. As for their respective free skates—I love them both, and
Chan’s was quite possibly the best he’s ever done with a FS at Skate Canada.
But Hanyu landed multiple great quad jumps, where Chan landed only one. I know
Hanyu was the one with a fall (on—surprise!!—a triple lutz), but he only beat
Chan’s FS technical score by 3 points and some change... and then Chan
doubled down on the Olympic Gold Medalist with components (95 points to nearly
89, respectively). So even if they’d been neck-and-neck after the SP, and all
other things were equal, Chan STILL would have won? It’s enough to make a busy
woman want to spend time studying the protocols from this event rather than,
say, go make chicken tacos for the kids. (But I didn’t yet... sorry... the
struggle is real!)

+I really felt for Daisuke Murakami (representing
Japan,
finishing with bronze). As the improbable SP leader who had the dubious honor
of skating his FS right after Chan brought the house down, I admit that I was
among those who thought he might do well to deliver a middle-of-the-pack free
skate (or worse) and finish off the podium. Except he didn’t—he defied the odds
and did very well, with his best quad (the salchow) in fine form! But when
everything was totaled and bagged, his score still couldn’t come close to Chan’s or Hanyu’s. It’s no wonder,
then, that I heard James Ingram singing the opening lines of THIS as Murakami
learned his third-place fate...

+Murakami’s bronze, of course, kept 4th-place
Adam Rippon from the podium. While that’s not great news for fans of the
current U.S.
silver medalist, it was a clear improvement from last year’s SkCAN finish (10th).
The bugaboos haven’t changed—quad lutzes still unsuccessful (with no other
quads in the arsenal), triple axels 2-for-3 here—but what was better this time
was his attack. He went for everything—no pops, no doubles-meant-to-be-triples.
We’ll see if he can keep it up and/or improve; he’ll get another GP shot at Rostelecom
Cup.

+You know who had a higher technical score in the
FS than Rippon? His teammate, Timothy Dolensky. Making his GP debut at SkCAN,
Dolensky had a troublesome SP (finishing 11th of 12) but skated
lights out in the free to finish 7th overall. He doesn’t compete with
a quad, but his triple axel (and 3axel/3toe combo) were spot on. ThisIceNetwork article discusses Dolensky’s debut—but savor the performance; he is
not scheduled to compete on the circuit again this season. Not yet, anyway...

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About Me

By day, I write and/or do production for clients in corporate video and B2B magazines. But I've also written for PSA (Professional Skaters Association) Magazine and SKATING (official USFS publication)... with more to come!